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When He Calls Your Name
2026 Hugo Awards Voter Packet.
35 pages, ebook
Published May 6, 2026
About the author
Catherynne M. Valente
262 books7,895 followersCatherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 26, 2026
A creepy backwoods story
The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:
★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
☆☆☆☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
☆☆☆☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente
Cat Valente makes her readers work. She writes dense, elaborate prose in which every word counts. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, the pay-off is worth the effort. Indeed, I often feel that the pay-off is greater, for the simple reason that I have worked for it. On the other, it's exhausting. I can't read two Valente novels back-to-back. (I except her Fairyland books, which, being aimed at kids, are lighter reads.) I tell you truly and without exaggeration, I have read mathematics textbooks with less effort than Valente's most demanding novels. Palimpsest just about killed me.
When He Calls Your Name is a novelette, so it doesn't have space to reach math textbook levels of mental strain. It's a good story, perhaps a little less original than I usually expect of Valente, and I enjoyed it.
You can find it here, and an author interview here.
Blog review.
The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:
★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
☆☆☆☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
☆☆☆☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente
Cat Valente makes her readers work. She writes dense, elaborate prose in which every word counts. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, the pay-off is worth the effort. Indeed, I often feel that the pay-off is greater, for the simple reason that I have worked for it. On the other, it's exhausting. I can't read two Valente novels back-to-back. (I except her Fairyland books, which, being aimed at kids, are lighter reads.) I tell you truly and without exaggeration, I have read mathematics textbooks with less effort than Valente's most demanding novels. Palimpsest just about killed me.
When He Calls Your Name is a novelette, so it doesn't have space to reach math textbook levels of mental strain. It's a good story, perhaps a little less original than I usually expect of Valente, and I enjoyed it.
You can find it here, and an author interview here.
Blog review.
July 11, 2026
2026 Hugo Award finalist - Best Novelette
This is basically a mashup of Dolly Parton’s song Jolene with vampire lore. When a beautiful female vampire named Jolene starts feeding on a small-town farmer, the farmer’s wife confronts Jolene with the intention of getting her husband back. But during a long 3 am conversation, Jolene and the woman realize things may not be what they seem. In the process, despite some awkward exposition about how vampire lore has become misunderstood (awkward to the reader because vampire lore is 100% made up!), it becomes an emotionally powerful metaphor for the lives and loves we have and the compromises we make to live comfortably. What might you give up to be free and alive?
This is basically a mashup of Dolly Parton’s song Jolene with vampire lore. When a beautiful female vampire named Jolene starts feeding on a small-town farmer, the farmer’s wife confronts Jolene with the intention of getting her husband back. But during a long 3 am conversation, Jolene and the woman realize things may not be what they seem. In the process, despite some awkward exposition about how vampire lore has become misunderstood (awkward to the reader because vampire lore is 100% made up!), it becomes an emotionally powerful metaphor for the lives and loves we have and the compromises we make to live comfortably. What might you give up to be free and alive?
May 21, 2026
Catherynne M. Valente ti amo, sei folle, hai preso un meme e l'hai trasformato nella miglior storia di vampiri che abbia letto da anni.
July 24, 2026
I knwo a lot of people really like Catherynne M. Valente's writing, but I just don't get on with it.
July 31, 2026
First, if you’ve never heard Dolly Parton’s classic song, “Jolene”, it’s probably best that you listen to it AFTER you read this take on it. “Jolene” is clearly the basis for this novelette, but I’m honestly not sure whether knowing the original will help or hurt in your interpretations of this re-interpretation.
At the same time, and in the same thought, if you’ve never heard, or heard of the Eldritch Horror version of “Jolene” , you REALLY don’t want to look that up until after you’ve finished the story. Because this story fits WAY BETTER into the Eldritch Horror version than it does the original.
The outline of the story is the same as the song. It’s the same as a lot of songs, actually. “Jolene” strolls into this small town, “steals” the narrator’s husband and comes to claim her “prize”. The scare quotes are because a person can’t be stolen in the way these stories usually mean, and frankly, Charlie is no prize for either of them.
The story is theoretically about a conversation between the narrator, the “wronged” wife, and the brazen, man-stealing hussy Jolene.
It’s in the word “theoretically” that all the paranormal elements AND interesting speculation come into this story – on both sides.
Some of that is in the circumlocution that the narrator uses to refer to Jolene. At first, we’re pretty sure that the word she’s talking around but not actually saying is ‘whore’. Or possibly either ‘bitch’ or ‘cunt’ or all of the above. It’s only as the story progresses, as they talk on the porch, that the reader realizes that the word that’s being talked around is actually ‘vampire’.
And that the reason they’re having this conversation on the porch is that porches are liminal spaces, neither inside or outside, and that the distinction is important to creatures like Jolene. And, as it turns out, to people like the narrator. Maybe. Possibly. Eventually.
Because Jolene can’t get into the house to get Charlie without permission. Permission that the narrator is not about to give. Ever. At the same time, Jolene doesn’t need permission to get inside the narrator’s head. All she needs is time to talk and a whole lot of experience in getting people to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.
Escape Rating B: This is the last novelette in my Hugo reads. And it’s a very sort of equivocal story to end with. It’s not exactly fantasy, it’s not exactly horror, it’s not exactly the song and it’s not exactly like the story the reader thinks it’s going to be at any point in it. It also doesn’t exactly end. Jolene goes, the narrator stays and Charlie wakes up from his ensorcellment but it doesn’t feel like an ending. Or so I thought on first reading
It felt more like a temporary settling on the original status quo, and a pause while the narrator thinks about whether she’s going to remain content with the small life in the small town with the mostly tolerable husband she mostly keeps afloat through life. Then I reread the beginning and realized it wasn't.
Either way, the real story doesn’t feel like it’s Jolene stealing Charlie or stealing Charlie’s soul or stealing Charlie’s life essence. It’s about the story she tells that night, a very unreliable narrator explaining how she got to be what she is and that it doesn’t work the way that people think it does. And that the narrator is just as likely to turn out like Jolene someday as Jolene was likely to have been her if her life had been different or if she’d been willing to settle for what other people thought she should be.
From one perspective, this is a feminist take on the story in the song. Jolene didn’t choose to become a vampire, she chose not to settle for the life that society believed she was supposed to have. This is absolutely not a ‘wronged woman’ vs. ‘brazen hussy’ story that pits two women against each other over a man who isn’t worth it. Jolene is just surviving and the narrator is just protecting the life she’s built. In the end, they aren’t enemies, they’re merely two sides of the same coin.
I thought the story was left a bit open-ended, that the narrator had decided one thing in the moment but might – and could – change her mind at some point in the future. The author contacted me to tell me to check the opening line again, and she was right to. Because the opening line does give the ending, but only after you read the whole thing through. Something that’s easy to lose track of in the throes of a good story. Which I did.
In the end, I left this one with mixed feelings. It held my interest while reading, and Jolene’s interpretations of the hows and whys of her kind of vampirism were interesting and a bit different, which was itself good because damn but that’s been done to death – pun definitely intended.
However, the story needs a lot of underlying assumptions about the narrator’s life and choices to make it work. (Also, in the original song she’s so pathetic that I can’t even with that.) A little bit more story, novella length perhaps, would have allowed more room for worldbuilding and a bit less of the song lyrics, resulting in a killer earworm. Your reading mileage may vary.
But now that I’ve finished my reading in this category, I’m left on the horns of a bit of a dilemma in my Hugo ballot. Not about this story, which is going to be well down my ballot, but needing to flip a coin between “Kaiju Agonistes” and “Never Eaten Vegetables” for my top pick. I have less than two weeks left to decide!
Originally published at Reading Reality
At the same time, and in the same thought, if you’ve never heard, or heard of the Eldritch Horror version of “Jolene” , you REALLY don’t want to look that up until after you’ve finished the story. Because this story fits WAY BETTER into the Eldritch Horror version than it does the original.
The outline of the story is the same as the song. It’s the same as a lot of songs, actually. “Jolene” strolls into this small town, “steals” the narrator’s husband and comes to claim her “prize”. The scare quotes are because a person can’t be stolen in the way these stories usually mean, and frankly, Charlie is no prize for either of them.
The story is theoretically about a conversation between the narrator, the “wronged” wife, and the brazen, man-stealing hussy Jolene.
It’s in the word “theoretically” that all the paranormal elements AND interesting speculation come into this story – on both sides.
Some of that is in the circumlocution that the narrator uses to refer to Jolene. At first, we’re pretty sure that the word she’s talking around but not actually saying is ‘whore’. Or possibly either ‘bitch’ or ‘cunt’ or all of the above. It’s only as the story progresses, as they talk on the porch, that the reader realizes that the word that’s being talked around is actually ‘vampire’.
And that the reason they’re having this conversation on the porch is that porches are liminal spaces, neither inside or outside, and that the distinction is important to creatures like Jolene. And, as it turns out, to people like the narrator. Maybe. Possibly. Eventually.
Because Jolene can’t get into the house to get Charlie without permission. Permission that the narrator is not about to give. Ever. At the same time, Jolene doesn’t need permission to get inside the narrator’s head. All she needs is time to talk and a whole lot of experience in getting people to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.
Escape Rating B: This is the last novelette in my Hugo reads. And it’s a very sort of equivocal story to end with. It’s not exactly fantasy, it’s not exactly horror, it’s not exactly the song and it’s not exactly like the story the reader thinks it’s going to be at any point in it. It also doesn’t exactly end. Jolene goes, the narrator stays and Charlie wakes up from his ensorcellment but it doesn’t feel like an ending. Or so I thought on first reading
It felt more like a temporary settling on the original status quo, and a pause while the narrator thinks about whether she’s going to remain content with the small life in the small town with the mostly tolerable husband she mostly keeps afloat through life. Then I reread the beginning and realized it wasn't.
Either way, the real story doesn’t feel like it’s Jolene stealing Charlie or stealing Charlie’s soul or stealing Charlie’s life essence. It’s about the story she tells that night, a very unreliable narrator explaining how she got to be what she is and that it doesn’t work the way that people think it does. And that the narrator is just as likely to turn out like Jolene someday as Jolene was likely to have been her if her life had been different or if she’d been willing to settle for what other people thought she should be.
From one perspective, this is a feminist take on the story in the song. Jolene didn’t choose to become a vampire, she chose not to settle for the life that society believed she was supposed to have. This is absolutely not a ‘wronged woman’ vs. ‘brazen hussy’ story that pits two women against each other over a man who isn’t worth it. Jolene is just surviving and the narrator is just protecting the life she’s built. In the end, they aren’t enemies, they’re merely two sides of the same coin.
I thought the story was left a bit open-ended, that the narrator had decided one thing in the moment but might – and could – change her mind at some point in the future. The author contacted me to tell me to check the opening line again, and she was right to. Because the opening line does give the ending, but only after you read the whole thing through. Something that’s easy to lose track of in the throes of a good story. Which I did.
In the end, I left this one with mixed feelings. It held my interest while reading, and Jolene’s interpretations of the hows and whys of her kind of vampirism were interesting and a bit different, which was itself good because damn but that’s been done to death – pun definitely intended.
However, the story needs a lot of underlying assumptions about the narrator’s life and choices to make it work. (Also, in the original song she’s so pathetic that I can’t even with that.) A little bit more story, novella length perhaps, would have allowed more room for worldbuilding and a bit less of the song lyrics, resulting in a killer earworm. Your reading mileage may vary.
But now that I’ve finished my reading in this category, I’m left on the horns of a bit of a dilemma in my Hugo ballot. Not about this story, which is going to be well down my ballot, but needing to flip a coin between “Kaiju Agonistes” and “Never Eaten Vegetables” for my top pick. I have less than two weeks left to decide!
Originally published at Reading Reality
July 9, 2026
Notes taken from my review column of all the nominees for Hugo Awards 2026: Best Novelette.
This novelette is top of my list for voting this year. Perhaps oddly, this is one of the two nominees on this slate that were very obviously influenced, if not outright inspired, by Dolly Parton's classic country song Jolene. It actually took me a while to get into this story -- at first, I thought the narrator and Charlie were cousins, lol -- but once the narrative gets going, it really gets going.
It's probably impossible to talk about the novelette otherwise without spoilers, but I will say that I find it endlessly fascinating how I can chart whatever's going on in Ms Valente's personal life by the contents of her stories. I'm just glad she's moved on from the self-sabotaging weirdness of the Deathless series, and that she seems to have finally internalized that no man is worth lying to yourself and diminishing your own desires and personal happiness. The ambiguous ending did make me ache a little, and I'm hoping that the narrator does eventually follow that silvery trail away.
This novelette is top of my list for voting this year. Perhaps oddly, this is one of the two nominees on this slate that were very obviously influenced, if not outright inspired, by Dolly Parton's classic country song Jolene. It actually took me a while to get into this story -- at first, I thought the narrator and Charlie were cousins, lol -- but once the narrative gets going, it really gets going.
It's probably impossible to talk about the novelette otherwise without spoilers, but I will say that I find it endlessly fascinating how I can chart whatever's going on in Ms Valente's personal life by the contents of her stories. I'm just glad she's moved on from the self-sabotaging weirdness of the Deathless series, and that she seems to have finally internalized that no man is worth lying to yourself and diminishing your own desires and personal happiness. The ambiguous ending did make me ache a little, and I'm hoping that the narrator does eventually follow that silvery trail away.
August 17, 2026
(2026 Hugo novellette nominee #6)
This one, now, is a hoot and a half.
On the one hand — the left hand, let's say — it's a somewhat unusual take on vampires, set somewhere in the Southeastern back country.
And on the other hand, it's a very weird take on Dolly Parton's song "Jolene."
Our narrator's man has been sneaking off ... well, not even sneaking, really ... to see Jolene, a woman of great beauty and sharp teeth, and is now near changing.
So she ties him to the bed and waits for Jolene to come, and the rest of the story is essentially an interview with a vampire, but what an interview: Valente gets more sheer story (that's story, by the way, not "plot") into a dozen or so pages than Anne Rice managed in an entire book. With a more believable character, to boot.
And when you're done, you go back and reread the first sentence and shiver.
Nine out of ten shotguns.
This one, now, is a hoot and a half.
On the one hand — the left hand, let's say — it's a somewhat unusual take on vampires, set somewhere in the Southeastern back country.
And on the other hand, it's a very weird take on Dolly Parton's song "Jolene."
Our narrator's man has been sneaking off ... well, not even sneaking, really ... to see Jolene, a woman of great beauty and sharp teeth, and is now near changing.
So she ties him to the bed and waits for Jolene to come, and the rest of the story is essentially an interview with a vampire, but what an interview: Valente gets more sheer story (that's story, by the way, not "plot") into a dozen or so pages than Anne Rice managed in an entire book. With a more believable character, to boot.
And when you're done, you go back and reread the first sentence and shiver.
Nine out of ten shotguns.
June 2, 2026
I loved 'When He Calls Your Name.'
This novelette constitutes my introduction to writer Catherynne M. Valente. What an introduction! Her story is creative and fun, and she takes it interesting places. But her story isn't even the draw. Valente's gifted with a superlative talent for beautiful prose. I don't want to provide a list of out-of-context, possibly spoiler-laden quotes, but know that my copy of 'When He Calls Your Name' is so filled with highlighter ink it looks like an Easter egg.
Of note, Valente successfully gives her characters unique voices, using the tools of dialect and expression as characterization instead of exposition. 'When He Calls Your Name' is beautiful and sad and funny and angry and wise. Mostly, it's beautiful. Best of all, it's available for free at Uncanny Magazine's website: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic... . You owe it to yourself to read this story.
This novelette constitutes my introduction to writer Catherynne M. Valente. What an introduction! Her story is creative and fun, and she takes it interesting places. But her story isn't even the draw. Valente's gifted with a superlative talent for beautiful prose. I don't want to provide a list of out-of-context, possibly spoiler-laden quotes, but know that my copy of 'When He Calls Your Name' is so filled with highlighter ink it looks like an Easter egg.
Of note, Valente successfully gives her characters unique voices, using the tools of dialect and expression as characterization instead of exposition. 'When He Calls Your Name' is beautiful and sad and funny and angry and wise. Mostly, it's beautiful. Best of all, it's available for free at Uncanny Magazine's website: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic... . You owe it to yourself to read this story.
July 6, 2026
A woman verbally spars with a vampire named Jolene 😊 who wants to take her husband. Jolene has been feeding on him for a while and the wife hasn’t known what to do, until now. Valente credits Dolly Parton. Yes, there are lines from the song in the story, but it works sooooo well. And there are two twists. I have to share a great line: Jolene tells the wife, “I am sorry [for feeding on her husband]. It wasn’t personal. It’s only nature. Wolves hunt.” The wife replies, “And people shoot wolves from fucking helicopters, lady.”
Come visit my blog for reviews of all the novelette nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
Come visit my blog for reviews of all the novelette nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
May 10, 2026
This story has a stupid gimmick. I won't say what it was, but I should have stopped reading once I realized it. I am now worried that by reading this story I've created a corrupt, negative connotation attached to something that I once enjoyed. I may, in the future, upon hearing that thing, be continually reminded of this story.
I wish I could un-read it.
I read this novelette for Hugo voting purposes. I typically reserve 1-star reviews not for stories that are boring or DNF, but for those rare pieces that years later will cause my eyes to roll and my lips to twist in frustration. This one seems to qualify.
I wish I could un-read it.
I read this novelette for Hugo voting purposes. I typically reserve 1-star reviews not for stories that are boring or DNF, but for those rare pieces that years later will cause my eyes to roll and my lips to twist in frustration. This one seems to qualify.
June 12, 2026
Another of the Hugo nominees for Novelette this year. I admit a certain irritation as to how long I was uncertain about certain aspects of the story.
Actually, adding spoilers...
Setting aside the name issue, I also feel a bit off that I was unsure for as long as I was that the named character was a Vampire. From some of the other items that happened in the story, the idea of a were-wolf, some other were, a succubus, etc... as well as any number of less well known supernatural entities...
I perhaps feel that I was expected to figure it out earlier than I did? Perhaps I just am aware of too -many- alternatives that it could have been before it was spelt out?
Actually, adding spoilers...
Setting aside the name issue, I also feel a bit off that I was unsure for as long as I was that the named character was a Vampire. From some of the other items that happened in the story, the idea of a were-wolf, some other were, a succubus, etc... as well as any number of less well known supernatural entities...
I perhaps feel that I was expected to figure it out earlier than I did? Perhaps I just am aware of too -many- alternatives that it could have been before it was spelt out?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2026
Read for the 2026 Hugos
It's really hard to talk about this one without spoiling it. It's got some excellent surprises for you. It's very well written. I love the setting and the narration. The narrator's voice needs a good Southern twang. I don't know if it's explicitly set in the South, but with the descriptions of the woods, and the house, and the fireflies, I'm pretty sure it is.
The ending is a little ambiguous. I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I have ideas. And I think that's the ok. Sometimes a little ambiguity is a good thing.
It's really hard to talk about this one without spoiling it. It's got some excellent surprises for you. It's very well written. I love the setting and the narration. The narrator's voice needs a good Southern twang. I don't know if it's explicitly set in the South, but with the descriptions of the woods, and the house, and the fireflies, I'm pretty sure it is.
The ending is a little ambiguous. I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I have ideas. And I think that's the ok. Sometimes a little ambiguity is a good thing.
July 14, 2026
A brooding, atmospheric tale about undertones in , which could have felt like a cheap trick but instead hit me with complete delight. I was already bought in and realizing what it was riffing on just made me even happier.
This delighted me. Top two of the Hugo crop so far. Deserves to be savored.
This delighted me. Top two of the Hugo crop so far. Deserves to be savored.
July 15, 2026
I read this for the Hugo Awards.
Sadly, this just didn't land right with me. Props, I guess, to the author for using this subject matter based on its certain source of inspiration, but I didn't like the writing style, and it all seemed a bit too tongue-in-cheek.
It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't for me.
2 out of 5 stars.
Sadly, this just didn't land right with me. Props, I guess, to the author for using this subject matter based on its certain source of inspiration, but I didn't like the writing style, and it all seemed a bit too tongue-in-cheek.
It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't for me.
2 out of 5 stars.
July 18, 2026
(I started reading it and the voice - the detail, the mundanity - gave King so much, and then the eponymous inspiration took front stage, and then I got to the conclusion, and Valente listed influences - and Stephen was not on the list - and then she said she was working on an homage to SK and I went A-HA!)
Well, it was quite good - not terribly original, but very fun.
Well, it was quite good - not terribly original, but very fun.
July 19, 2026
I think this is a vampire story, but it's also much weirder than that. It includes a powerful exploration of what a 'normal life' might be, what men are like (a not very pretty perspective), and why would might choose -- or have no choice but to choose -- something else.
A nominee for Best Novelette of 2025 in the Hugo Awards. Hauting, and will stay with me for a while.
A nominee for Best Novelette of 2025 in the Hugo Awards. Hauting, and will stay with me for a while.
August 2, 2026
I read this last year when it came out, and I'm pleased it's a finalist for the Hugo best novelette award. It's a fun exercise to base a story around a song, and it's done so well here - the narrator's story is familiar and tragic, and so is Jolene's. The prose evokes a hot summer night, the timelessness of sitting up on a porch at night. I enjoyed it a lot.
September 25, 2026
This is as twist on the Dolly Parton song Jolene where the the red haired girl turns out to be an immortal vampire. When Jolene comes to collect her man, the protagonist fights back with what she's learned from books but the vampire gives her back what she most didn't want to know...the truth about herself and her life.
May 9, 2026
4'5/5
The most thought provoking of all the Best Novelette Hugo Awards 2026 nominees. The most uncomfortable as well which in this case is a positive. The most beautifully written too. Left me speechless.
The most thought provoking of all the Best Novelette Hugo Awards 2026 nominees. The most uncomfortable as well which in this case is a positive. The most beautifully written too. Left me speechless.
June 16, 2026
A fun, voicy story that makes good use of well trodden territory, refreshing it with creative new lore. I can't say much without spoiling the reveal. Let's just say if you're a fan of Dolly Parton you might enjoy this piece. It's short, it's free, it's Hugo nominated; what's not to like?
June 27, 2026
A very fitting homage to Jolenne, Dolly Parton's song in a short story of a woman fighting for what she considers is hers. What I loved the most from it was the sweet Southern style I could almost chew on. Cat Valente is a queen of writing both long and short stories and I never tire of her style
July 13, 2026
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
I wasn't sure about this one at first. The prose was as dense and cloying and southern sweat tea. But one we go going into the story, oh boy. There was a lot of truth and vibrance packed into this novelette.
I wasn't sure about this one at first. The prose was as dense and cloying and southern sweat tea. But one we go going into the story, oh boy. There was a lot of truth and vibrance packed into this novelette.
May 27, 2026
Not really my kind of story, but written with prose like literature they teach in school.
June 5, 2026
My notes for Hugo voting: MC challenges a beautiful woman luring away her husband. Woman challenges MC’s perception of her own life. Who is actually lured away in the end?
June 13, 2026
This review is for When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente (goodreads often groups together stories that appears in anthologies).
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Novelette category. I had previously read some of the previous work by this author, and particularly liked her short fiction. I loved this one too!
It's two in the morning on the kind of summer night that wrings the breath right out of you, and a woman sits on her farmhouse porch with a shotgun in her lap, waiting. Not for a bear, not for a raccoon. For something older and stranger than either. Her husband has been slipping out the door every night since a particular woman caught his eye at the bank — a woman with auburn hair and green eyes like the word emerald thinks of itself, a woman who doesn't quite belong anywhere that has central air conditioning.
Written in a voice as thick and rich as good bourbon, Catherynne M. Valente's Hugo-nominated novelette is a story about marriage, mythology, and what it means to be happy with what you've got — or to wonder, at 3 a.m. on a dark porch, whether you ever really were. Inspired with deep love by Dolly Parton, it takes a classic song's premise and asks what happens when the woman left behind decides she has something to say directly to the other woman — and means every word of it.
It is a sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly tender story, that I recommend to everyone.
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Novelette category. I had previously read some of the previous work by this author, and particularly liked her short fiction. I loved this one too!
It's two in the morning on the kind of summer night that wrings the breath right out of you, and a woman sits on her farmhouse porch with a shotgun in her lap, waiting. Not for a bear, not for a raccoon. For something older and stranger than either. Her husband has been slipping out the door every night since a particular woman caught his eye at the bank — a woman with auburn hair and green eyes like the word emerald thinks of itself, a woman who doesn't quite belong anywhere that has central air conditioning.
Written in a voice as thick and rich as good bourbon, Catherynne M. Valente's Hugo-nominated novelette is a story about marriage, mythology, and what it means to be happy with what you've got — or to wonder, at 3 a.m. on a dark porch, whether you ever really were. Inspired with deep love by Dolly Parton, it takes a classic song's premise and asks what happens when the woman left behind decides she has something to say directly to the other woman — and means every word of it.
It is a sharp, funny, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly tender story, that I recommend to everyone.
June 17, 2026
interesting & short! We love a Dolly Parton reference
June 20, 2026
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June 28, 2026
The Jolene story twisted into sci fi. Personally I would have made a different choice at the end. Well done.
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July 1, 2026I LOVED this.
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